The fragrance of Middle Eastern cuisine wafts into your nostrils, even before you open the door of the café opposite the central railway station in Yerevan, Armenia’s capital. Nerses Kevo, the café’s owner, is one of thousands of Armenian Christians who fled the Syrian civil war and moved to . . . Read More

A joint commission of Turkey’s major Christian denominations has published an historic book of concise Christian doctrine, receiving the unprecedented endorsement of all the nation’s Orthodox, Catholic, Armenian, Syriac and Protestant Churches. According to Armenian Bishop Sahak Masalyan, keynote speaker at the formal book launch in Istanbul of the English . . . Read More

For the sixth time since the founding of the Turkish Republic in 1923, the government of constitutionally “secular” Turkey has openly intervened in the selection of a new Armenian Patriarch to lead the nation’s largest Christian community. Now estimated at less than 40,000, Turkey’s Armenian community – located primarily in . . . Read More

Turkish police were called to Trabzon’s Santa Maria Catholic Church on Sunday morning (4 February) to examine a smouldering device spotted in the garden by alarmed church staff. After discovering a partially burned homemade pipe bomb, which had failed to explode, local authorities promptly checked the church’s security camera footage. . . . Read More

Conservative MPs within Iran’s parliament are proposing that Iranians should only be allowed to vote for members of their own religious group. In Iran, where 90-95% of the population is Shia Muslim, this will essentially mean that it will be impossible for members of religious minorities to be elected. The . . . Read More

A years-long saga on the leadership gap in Turkey’s Armenian Church has reached still another snag, Al-Monitor reported on March 22. The debilitating illness of the spiritual leader of Turkey’s largest Christian community has left Armenian Patriarch Mesrob II Mutafyan alive, but unable to fulfill his church duties since 2008. . . . Read More

The German Parliament has recognised the massacre 100 years ago of up to a million Armenians by the Turkish Ottoman Empire as “genocide”. Early in the 4th Century, the Kingdom of Armenia was the first nation to adopt Christianity as its state religion. At the time of the genocide, Germany . . . Read More

An historic Armenian church has been destroyed in Aleppo, Syria. The Armenian Church of Forty Martyrs dates back to the 15th Century. The Armenian Weekly says it is unclear whether the church was destroyed by shelling or explosives. “The church was at the centre of Armenian community life in Aleppo, . . . Read More

Further details have emerged of what’s been happening since the invasion of Kessab by Islamist rebels, which sent thousands of Syrians fleeing the predominantly Armenian Christian town. According to a World Watch Monitor source 23-year-old Kevork Jourian was killed by members of Syrian rebel groups as they were searching for guns . . . Read More

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, and the UK Foreign Office Minister responsible for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), have both acknowledged the findings of a report which says that Christians in Syria are increasingly targeted and vulnerable to persecution, amidst the on-going conflict there. Syria: Church on . . . Read More